Net Zero comes in all sorts of sometimes quite scarily stringent versions ( Scope 1, 2, and 3) with the ambition to emit no more in terms of greenhouse gas or equivalents from our activities than we also ensure is removed, is an ambition so great that to do it any justice at all, we need to consider all aspects of our life and work. Not merely to make life hard – because life is already hard for those people and creatures already suffering from effects of the climate crisis – but to make life better, healthier, holier. If the City of Glasgow can offer wildflower meadow as part of their own campaign, what beauty can we offer? This written prayer, the adaptation or quoting of which is warmly encouraged, if offered as a step to help the campaigns be seen as a positive response of faith, rather than boring or slavish capitulation to secular targets. [Downloadable PDF below the video, and under it, the text which can simply be copied and pasted ]

A Prayer of Ambition – to place the Net Zero campaigns of churches, and of civil society in the context of a response of faith-

Graphic:  Net Zero Nation – Let’s Do Net Zero, Scottish Government

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[Romans 12:10

love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour.]

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Sustaining God, Incarnate in the Earth; Wild Wind of life

may we praise you with all that we are

in the obedient reshaping of all that we have and do

for your glory, as Good News for all Creation.

Expose the pride in humility’s clothing 

of sitting back as if we could do nothing

And the folly disguised as wisdom

of delay, and ‘bit by bit’

So may our work and worship join  hands

and shamelessly uncover the impact of what we still need to do

whilst striving to balance and heal 

the harm so unjustly distributed.

May we indeed, and with mutual encouragement 

outdo one another in showing honour to the Earth

Looking not only for savings in carbon emissions ‘on paper’

but beauty, integrity and a betterment of life for people and planet 

for wildlife and all the creatures to whom God also gives the Earth as habitat, as home.

Net Zero is the end of excuses and exceptions, 

it brings repentance and acceptance of responsibility 

for damage to Earth’s life, both past and urgently present

Dear God, who loves the Earth 

reminding us in the rainbow of your Covenant

may sun and rain each day proclaim

the scope of this ambition,

the daunting height of hills we need  to climb

but more, the grace on which our life is founded,

looking  forward with joy and hope

to the day when we surmount  that summit 

and glimpse with awe, delighted,  the way ahead

AMEN

(translated , means ‘Get on with it!)